LP_468x60
ontario news watch
on-the-record-468x60-white
and-another-thing-468x60

Back when Justin Trudeau was on the campaign trail he spoke words full of wonderful ideals and promise.  He and his team took the highroad and projected a brand of positivity.  Even when Trudeau was asked a negative question at a campaign rally and his supporters booed, Trudeau admonished them: "Hey! Guys, guys.  Hey, we have respect in this country for journalists.  They ask tough questions and they're supposed to.  Okay?  Sorry, go ahead…"  The CBC fawned over the footage of Trudeau sticking up for them and the rest of the beleaguered press.  Peter Mansbridge was so pleased he had it rewound and played twice on The National that evening.

It was a savvy play, even if it came off a bit cheesy and has been proven somewhat phony in hindsight; journalists are beginning to realize the new government is not all that much more "open" and "transparent" than its predecessor was when it rose to power on the exact same oxymoronic message of bringing honesty to government.

The Liberals are at least due some credit for taking a keen interest in the future of media in Canada (even if their intervention will likely be severely detrimental).  Trudeau gave the CBC an extra $150 million in annual funding, despite state-funded journalism being fraught with follies.  Furthermore, Trudeau's government is now conducting hearings by its Canadian Heritage Standing Committee to listen to voices within Canadian media on how the government should proceed in aiding the ill industry.

However, no matter how genuine the Liberals' intentions are in helping journalism, many bootstrap media startups (e.g. Canadaland and iPolitics) are advising the committee against further subsidization.  Just as these new online companies are growing, the CBC — now $150 million-a-year-richer — has decided it is a good idea to expand into creating an op-ed section on its website, encroaching on an already crowded market.  Meanwhile, representatives for debt-ridden legacy media — like Paul Godfrey's Post Media — have come to the government with hands out looking for charity.

It is in this toxic media environment — where much of the dinosaur legacy media is propped up by the government and welcomes even more dependence upon taxpayers and the state — that entrepreneurs have begun stepping in and building new media companies.

Gadfly journalist and entrepreneur Ezra Levant's right-wing The Rebel Media is one such company.  Between crowdfunding, donations, and ad revenue The Rebel has been able to hire a fulltime staff of 21 people in the last year-and-a-half.  Yet, despite its growth and wide coverage across the country, the UN last week decided to reject The Rebel's application for media accreditation.

In an absurd interview on CBC's As it Happens the UN's coordinator of communications Nick Nuttal explained his bizarre and dystopic reasoning for banning The Rebel.

"I looked at Rebel Media's website and it seemed to me that this was a kind of website that was very much pushing a very particular point of view and therefore made me wonder how it was funded, who backs it, and what kind of purpose they were there to serve.  Looking at some of the headlines on their website … there didn't seem to be much balance in the reporting… And I just didn't feel that it was maybe appropriate in terms of better understanding climate change issues and giving balanced reporting to the public," explained Nuttal to a Carol Off in disbelief.

Then moments later, Nuttal made it remarkably clear his real reason why he denied The Rebel accreditation.  "The point is he seems to be advocating a particular view of the world, which is, um, so personal that it didn't seem to be a genuine outfit to me."

Nuttal's personal decision to ban The Rebel seems to have been made upon his personal opinion on who he feels is a journalist.  He doesn't seem like a genuine UN official following the genuine UN Declaration of Human Rights to me.

In Levant's response (basically a metaphorical big middle finger to the "stupid little fascist" and "buffoon" Nuttal) to the arbitrary censorship he cited the UN's Declaration to point out the irony of The Rebel's ban: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

Levant also highlighted the hypocrisy of Nuttal including — in the UN's accreditation of 3,000 journalists — environmental activist bloggers and "propaganda mouthpieces like China's state-run Xinhua news agency or Vladimir Putin's RT."

Levant concluded the only real reason the UN banned The Rebel is because they "have the wrong opinions about climate change so we can't attend a UN conference on climate change."

Experienced at framing David versus Goliath narratives, Levant is drumming up support and crowdfunding to send three Rebel journalists to the COP 22 climate conference in Marrakech, Morocco in spite of their official UN ban.

And just like the last time this situation occurred — when the Alberta NDP banned the right-wing news site's reporters from the provincial legislature — the mainstream media has honourably come to The Rebel's defense again.  As well, journalist advocacy groups The Canadian Association of JournalistsCanadian Journalists for Free Expression, and PEN Canada all sent letters asking Nuttal to reverse his personal decision.

Before Levant rightly blasted Nuttal's despotic censorship, Nuttal was reconsidering his ban of the news site: "Now, when serious Canadian journalist associations actually write to me on that basis and are willing to stand by this individual and his website and what he covers, then now, I'm chewing that over.  [These associations] have credibility, it would seem, and so I'm really thinking about it."  (Notice the self-importance he unwittingly reveals through his constant use of the first person.)

It has now been over a week since this story broke and still silence from Nuttal.  Yesterday on Levant's show he interviewed former Environment Minister and MP Peter Kent, who suggested he may raise the issue to the Liberal government during an upcoming question period and also suggested it should be Foreign Minister Stéphane Dion who should rectify the unjust predicament.  It would be a chance for Dion to redeem himself for staying silent while his Chinese counterpart berated a Canadian reporter several months ago.

Also in the segment with Kent, Levant said his lawyers are sending a letter to Trudeau, asking him to intervene.

Levant is certainly audacious.  He has spent the past few years picking apart every gaffe of Trudeau's, nicknaming the PM "the shiny pony" and suggesting he is a lightweight, airhead, trust fund kid unfit for the top job in Canada.

Trudeau would prove him wrong and show immense grace if he assists Levant in getting UN media accreditation and follows his own words of having "respect … for journalists," even for one who has shown him none.  But one must continue to lower expectations from the soaring campaign rhetoric of yesteryear.

Written by Graeme C. Gordon

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.